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NVIDIA GeForce 930M

NVIDIA GeForce 930M

The NVIDIA GeForce 930M (sometimes also called Nvidia GeForce GT 930M) is a (lower) mid-range, DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2015. It is based on the last years GeForce 840M. In addition to the "normal" 25 Watt 930M, there is also a low power variant with a TDP of 12 Watt and support for DDR3 and GDDR5. The DDR3 variant should be approximately 10% slower than the 25 Watt version. The performance of the GDDR5 version is still unknown. The shader count for these low power 930M are also unknown. As the LP version is clocked only at 457 MHz + Boost it may feature more shaders (or a high Boost).

Update: The N16S-LP variant (5-12 Watt TDP, Low Power version?) will be available with GDDR5 starting in the first quarter of 2016. Later in 2016, the successor named GeForce 930MX was released that was available with GDDR5.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. The 930M should feature the full GM108 with 3 SMMs (384 shader cores, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs due to the 64-bit interface). 

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache. The larger size can process some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing performance.

Similar to GM107, the GM108 supports DirectX 12 with Feature Level 11_0 only.

Performance

The performance should be a bit below an average GeForce 840M due to the slower core clock. This means that demanding games like Evolve are only playable in lowest settings. Less demanding games like F1 2014 or Fifa 15 on the other hand should run in highest settings. See gaming benchmarks below for more details.

Features

GM108 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce 930M should be about 33 Watts or less. Therefore, the 930M is best suited for laptops 13 inches in size or larger. The 900M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

GeForce 900M Series

GeForce 945M compare 512 @ 0.93 - 1.05 GHz128 Bit @ 2000 MHz
Maxwell GPU (940M, GDDR5) compare 384 @ 0.95 - 0.99 GHz64 Bit @ 5012 MHz
GeForce 940MX compare 384 @ 1.12 - 1.24 GHz64 Bit @ 4000 MHz
GeForce 940M compare 384 @ 1.07 - 1.18 GHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
GeForce 930MX compare 384 @ 0.95 - 1.02 GHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
GeForce 930M 384 @ 0.93 - 0.94 GHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 920MX compare 256 @ 0.97 - 0.99 GHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 920M compare 384 @ 0.95 GHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 910M compare 384 @ 0.64 GHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
CodenameN16S-GM-B/S, N16S-LP
ArchitectureMaxwell
Pipelines384 - unified
Core Speed928 - 941 (Boost) MHz
Memory Speed1800 MHz
Memory Bus Width64 Bit
Memory TypeDDR3
Max. Amount of Memory2048 MB
Shared Memoryno
APIDirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0, OpenGL 4.5
Power Consumption12 / 25 Watt
technology28 nm
FeaturesGPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, PhysX, CUDA, GeForce Experience, GameWorks
Date of Announcement12.03.2015
Link to Manufacturer Pagehttp://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook...

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - 3DMark 11 + Fire Strike + Time Spy
0.6 pt (2%)
3DMark - 3DMark Cloud Gate Score
min: 5685     avg: 6271     median: 6071 (7%)     max: 7808 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Fire Strike Standard Score
min: 1267     avg: 1300     median: 1290.5 (2%)     max: 1369 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Fire Strike Standard Graphics
min: 1435     avg: 1470     median: 1460.5 (2%)     max: 1527 Points
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Score
min: 2131     avg: 2251     median: 2247 (3%)     max: 2456 Points
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance GPU
min: 2057     avg: 2145     median: 2153 (2%)     max: 2271 Points
3DMark Vantage
3DM Vant. Perf. total +
3DM Vant. Perf. GPU no PhysX +
3DMark 06 3DMark 06 - Standard 1280x1024 +
SPECviewperf 11
specvp11 snx-01 +
specvp11 tcvis-02 +
specvp11 sw-02 +
specvp11 proe-05 +
specvp11 maya-03 +
specvp11 lightwave-01 +
specvp11 ensight-04 +
specvp11 catia-03 +
Cinebench R10 Cinebench R10 Shading (32bit) +
Cinebench R11.5 Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64 Bit +
Cinebench R15
Cinebench R15 OpenGL 64 Bit +
Cinebench R15 OpenGL Ref. Match 64 Bit +
GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7
GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex HD Onscreen C24Z16 +
GFXBench T-Rex HD Offscreen C24Z16 +
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

low 1280x720
17.4  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
23.8  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Anthem

Anthem

2019
low 1280x720
18.4  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
12  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
20.5  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
51.8  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
low 1280x720
74.5  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
low 1280x720
24  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Hitman 2

Hitman 2

2018
low 1280x720
16.8  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
26.5  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
F1 2018

F1 2018

2018
low 1280x720
31  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
22.7  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
low 1280x720
28.9  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
World of Tanks enCore

World of Tanks enCore

2018
low 1366x768
203.3  fps    + Compare
med. 1920x1080
31.4  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
11.3  fps    + Compare